Aug 17
Arch-a-thon Post #26: How They’ve Changed
Remember your senior portraits from high school? There was probably one pose in a tuxedo or evening gown top, followed by a portrait in more casual attire. The background for such an image was likely something neutral that was basically a solid color on some kind of cloth backdrop.
That was then. That is not now.
Have you seen any senior portraits lately? Just take a look at the galleries here and here. Granted, all of these kids are beautiful, as if they had been cast out of some model catalog. But look at the backdrops: they take the kids outside. They place them in sports cars, with motorcycles, with horses.
And these two sites offer samples that are “clean” by comparison to what others offer; I’ve seen portraits that seem to want to depict sensuality. And that seems like a lot of pressure on an 18-year-old.
If I were in school and saw pictures like these, I might seriously consider cutting school that day.
Does it bother anyone else that some senior portraits seem to go a bit over the top, or am I the only one?
My senior pictures were taken 20 years ago, and coming up later during the Arch-a-thon, I’ll actually run a couple of them, just to show you what they looked like back in 1988.
August 17th, 2008 at 9:14 am
My senior picture was taken outside in a park. Everyone had ‘unposed’ photos for years in our yearbooks. Where we live now, the senior pictures in the yearbooks are basically gussied-up ID photos. I hate it. It means having a separate photo session for good senior pix. However, I think I’m grateful that we live far enough away from The Big City(ies) that the sites to which you linked are a non-starter for most kids here. The second one at least looks more portrait-y than the first one which does look like a modelling portfolio site.
Maybe that’s good for people who can’t take a decent portrait or have some kind of terminal flaw (you know how teenagers can be about noses and ears and zits): just don’t include the flaw in the photo.